


Footstool

by LyrebirdArvo



Series: Pisica Vagaboanda: Davokar AU [3]
Category: Symbaroum (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Casual Multiplicity, Gen, Necromancy, Short, Vague Mention of Dead Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyrebirdArvo/pseuds/LyrebirdArvo
Summary: YEAR -10Two changeling brothers work for the kingdom when it was still Alberetor south of the Titans, not yet Ambria along the Davokar.
Series: Pisica Vagaboanda: Davokar AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1420747
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Footstool

**Author's Note:**

> Another short one, just felt like tapping it out the other night.
> 
> The corebook is very vague about the situation alluded to in this fic, but the gist of it is that a collective of necromancers and an imperial-minded kingdom (the shitty one that will eventually travel north to fuckin colonize the Davokar region - where Pict and the primary story are) spent two decades in conflict. 
> 
> Sliske and Wahis, similar to their source canon roles, work for this government prior to this colonization, and break off for their own respective reasons during and after the move.

I kicked through the snow, high-stepping and indulging in the satisfying ruts left by my boots. I twisted a tight flourish, several steps ahead, and -

“Hurry it up!”

My brother did not hurry. He looked, in fact, to be walking much slower. His glasses were sliding down his frosted nose, pulled down by the ferocious angle he was using to squint at the ground, his messy eyebrows all scrunched together.

I noted he had added some hints of age to his human hair. A few specks of white undercutting the dusty brown, like he was fooling anyone.

_You should go entirely grey, to mess with him._

_He’d just complain at us._

_No, let them speak._

_Why do you always listen to their ideas?_

_My ideas are better._

_You’ll just look like a skunk during the transition. Don’t listen to them._

I let them argue, blending into a nice median cacophony as I skip-hopped backwards several more paces, testing if Wahis would look up.

He didn’t, of course.

My fingers curled along a spell-trick, a slow scraping drag against the world’s fabric that stripped loose just enough strings. They hummed low in the cold, then went quiet as I twisted them, spinning loose cocoons of snow along their lengths.

 _Steady,_ Tireh cautioned. _Steady, actually aim this time, don’t just do what Nooreh does-_

I snapped the string with my wrist like a whip, firing the spun snow with all the velocity of a fine-tuned slingshot. For the quarter of a second it took for the barrage to leave my side and splatter across his body, I hoped he’d do something exciting. Yank his sword out and somehow block them. Duck and roll and throw his own assault! Something like that.

He didn’t, of course.

 _Typical,_ Tireh muttered.

 _Knight of the Snoring Sun, more like,_ Nooreh added.

I sighed. “I didn’t raise you to be like that, dear.”

Wahis shook his glasses and swiped his glove low down his face, huffing to clear his nostrils. “You didn’t raise me, period.”

“Don’t make me tell mother during our next brunch.”

“Hnph. She didn’t raise _you_ like that.”

“I don’t know where you heard that. She always raised me to be a terrible gossip.”

“Not what- Fine. You could stand to be less of a gossip about yourself, at least. I’d prefer to not have to watch you be hauled away in irons.”

“What if I want to be hauled away in irons?”

He shot me a withering look as he finally, _finally_ caught up, and we fell in step together. I smiled and lifted my hands.

“Alright! But there’s nothing illegal about a long distance phone call. That’s perfectly lowly, law abiding behavior, from one such as myself.”

“It isn’t a phone call when one reciever is a skull, and it isn’t long distance when one recipient died of pneumonia.”

“Well, _now_ who’s the gossip? Hm?”

He rubbed his face again, this time out of weariness instead of cleanliness. “Legal it might be, but given the coming months, I don’t see much outside of your position saving you some harsh scrutiny. If even that.”

“I only twist the rotting things to work for me, Wahis. That’s not exactly me running off to them for lessons. And if I happen to pick up the techniques that are being used to hold them together in the first place, along the way, well, then that’s everyone else’s problem.”

“And that’s exactly what the executioner’s council is going to see it as.”

I started to wave him off, but caught a faint motion in the corner of my eye. The narrow street of this scarred outpost was not particularly busy, but the stragglers walking our same way weren’t themselves cause for attention.

Only one in particular was. I watched to see if she would do it again.

_There. Step forward, toe taps the ground twice. Manipulated gait._

I kept my hand down by my side, crooked a finger, and accepted the roll of paper as she brushed past. Wahis squinted at her back, probably thinking some very mild reprimands, which granted me a few seconds of head start in breaking the Twilight Friar seal and scanning the contents.

“What’s- Oh, another of yours? Well?”

Not long enough. He made to grab it from me, so I held it higher than his fingers could pry. He didn’t even bother to make a show of wanting it.

“This is childish.”

“I have six years on you, so I get six more minutes to look at it.”

“I _repeat.”_

“Deary me, are you going to throw a fit?”

“I haven’t ‘thrown a fit’ in decades.”

“Well, unless you count-”

I was careless; my arm now sunk low enough that he was able to snatch the document. I settled back on my heels to watch him as his lips pursed, then frowned, then frowned ten times harder.

“I take it you think this means we should actually do something today?”

He shoved the paper against my chest and began to march off. It was now my turn to follow. I took another glance at the sheet - short sentences, crisp lettering, _King Ynedar has been slain_ \- before folding it into my breast pocket.

“All I’m saying, brother dear-”

“I am not legally culpable for whatever is about to come out of you.”

“All I’m saying, of course, is that even if these invading parties _do_ now have the body of old Ynedar. And, assuming I can employ my ‘tasteless practices’ which I am assuming you are now doubly certain will become regulated out of existence in the coming months-to-years…”

“Sliske.”

“I just mean to say, he would make a very chic footrest, is all.”


End file.
